Our Newsletter

The Burning of the Eagles

We are extremely pleased to present a wonderful expansion to our Retreat from Russia Series and by far our largest "Vignette", the Burning of the Eagles! On the late afternoon of November 28th, facing the grim reality of the situation in which the tattered remnant of the Grand Armee found itself, Napoleon ordered the burning of his papers and many of the army's standards to prevent them from falling into enemy hands. Now, it is very much debated whether or not the standards were actually burned, however, the subject makes for such a wonderful vignette that we felt it was a must add vignette to add to the series. The Berezina is a battle in particular where Napoleon's old energy returned to him and the escape of the French Army from a seemingly impossibly situation was nothing short of miraculous. We have presented the scene here as inspired by several paintings of the same topic, most notably that by Wojciech Kossak (1857-1942). This is truly a wonderful set of figures covering an extremely solemn occasion for the once proud French Grand Armee. We sincerely hope you enjoy them.